


warily as those that trade in poison keep poison from their children

by congratsyouvegrownasoul



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I love this wonderful messed up woman and her weird child!, Kid Fic, Kieran may be creepy but he's also her baby and the changes in him would be hard for her, Parenthood, Soul-Searching, all I do is write women having conflicted feelings about motherhood honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 10:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22494559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/congratsyouvegrownasoul/pseuds/congratsyouvegrownasoul
Summary: The night after Flemeth tries to take Kieran from her, when he is returned, wholly himself now but not quite the same, Morrigan does not sleep. She takes the shape of a raven--the oldest and most familiar of her creatures--and sits on the windowsill of his bedroom, watching and waiting.
Relationships: Flemeth & Morrigan, Kieran & Morrigan
Kudos: 20





	warily as those that trade in poison keep poison from their children

The night after Flemeth tries to take Kieran from her, when he is returned, wholly himself now but not quite the same, Morrigan does not sleep. She takes the shape of a raven--the oldest and most familiar of her creatures--and sits on the windowsill of his bedroom, watching and waiting. When he was a baby, she used to find herself sleepless at night, watching him anxiously, unable to resist the thought he might suddenly stop breathing. There had always been the fear of her mother, as well, but this was something more mundane and yet more terrible. 

Now that one of her worst fears has come to pass and been weathered, something of that old love-panic remains. So she sits and waits. 

Towards dawn, there’s something else that hasn’t happened in many years. Kieran half-wakes, tossing in bed, snuffling and then sobbing in his sleep. He has never cried often--as a baby, yes, when he wanted to be nursed or held, but once he learned to speak he would tell her what bothered him. The little ragamuffin children running around in Skyhold, whimpering over skinned knees or lost dolls confuse Morrigan. She has not known many children, did not know others even when she herself was a girl, so Kieran has been her map for what childhood looks like, unusual though he may be. When she was a child, she was punished if she cried. 

She flies closer, her talons sinking into the soft bed, awkwardly shuffling to find purchase. As if by reflex, Kieran reaches out and hugs her close. She’s not a real raven, so she doesn’t mind. 

In the morning, in her ordinary skin, she sits beside him and strokes his hair as he wakes. 

“Did you have a nightmare? You were crying.” 

“I don’t remember. I always used to remember my dreams, every single one.” 

There’s an edge of sadness in his voice. 

“I feel blind. Or...not entirely. As if you woke up and you couldn’t see anything blue anymore, the sky was just a great blank emptiness and the world was full of holes, and no one else had ever seen anything there and didn’t know what you were missing.” 

Morrigan kisses the top of his head. 

“I’m so sorry.”

She doesn’t know what else to say. Does she tell him it will get better? That this version of himself will start to feel more natural? She had felt a bit like this, perhaps, when she had left the Korcari Wilds and again when she had held Kieran for the first time. Strange and changing and not quite herself, like a new skin. 

“I never felt like I had two souls, before. The other thing--it was inside me, in me, and now it’s gone and everything I think and feel and see is different. It’s not just what’s gone, either--I see things I didn’t before, want things I didn’t before. Like right now, I don’t want you to leave ever, even though I know that’s stupid and impossible and before I wouldn’t have minded being alone sometimes. Small things didn’t matter before because I could feel the whole world, and now everything little I never cared about is pressing in on me and I keep thinking about how hungry I am.” 

Morrigan half-laughs, despite herself. 

“Do you want to go find something to eat?”

“No, I want to stay here with you and never leave, but I _am_ hungry. I don’t know what I want.” 

He pulls his knees up to his chest, staring at her, eyes huge. It’s odd--now that he is more like an ordinary child he seems more fragile and scared and somehow more grown up. There had been a sort of innocence in his unchanging calm. 

“I could see it in her, you know, even before she said it. She had two souls, I guess, like me, all twisted up together. The older one all glowing with power, and the newer one fierce and angry, both broken up and then bound so close you couldn’t pull them apart. But she pulled me apart, and then I couldn’t see her souls anymore. She just looked like an old woman, and then I saw you were frightened of her. I hadn’t noticed before, because she had made me so curious, that was all I could see. But when I saw you were scared, I was too.”

“I’m sorry, Kieran. I didn’t want you to be scared, but I was worried for you. For both of us.”

Morrigan stares at her hands, something full and painful burning inside of her chest. It is still hard for her to talk about her feelings, and for a long time Kieran has not voiced such things.

“You thought she would hurt me, and you were surprised when she didn’t.” 

His voice is small and quivery. 

“I don’t need a second soul to see that.”

All this talk of souls, seeing how Kieran has changed even over the last day...Morrigan finds herself thinking back to when she was Kieran’s age, the lingering ever-present confusion about her own mother that laced her thoughts. How could someone who showed her how to fly on bird’s wings and played with her in the treetops also be so cruel? Now, she wonders if that split could have been part of the split inside Flemeth, this Mythal, the other mother, never named until now. Which one of them gave Morrigan life, hurt her, or loved her? In the end, does it even matter? 

She pushes these thoughts away--they’re maudlin and unhelpful, she lectures herself. Those wounds scabbed over long ago, and even if recent events have made them hurt anew, Kieran is watching her with new eyes. She must be stronger. 

She pulls him close to her, head coming gently down to rest against her shoulder. 

“You’re right, Kieran. I did think that. But my mother didn’t hurt you, and she doesn’t need anything from us now. She won’t hurt either of us, I promise.” 

A child with an old god’s soul might have seen inside her and known that even making such a promise felt like tempting fate. But this new boy-- _her_ boy, even if he is different from before--this boy smiles and snuggles up beside her, and she knows even a fearful promise matters. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "The Duchess of Malfi". Thank you for reading!


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